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Tuesday, February 28, 2012

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading.
Anyone can play along! Just do the following:
• Grab your current read
• Open to a random page
• Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
• BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share
doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
• Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can
add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

This week I am featuring two spoilers from Heather Burch's new novel, "Halflings" that was published on February 1.

“Fangs sank into Nikki Youngblood’s leg, setting her skin on fire. A
scream gurgled in her throat, but she willed herself past trees smeared
by her jarred vision”

“Raven scowled through his too-long bangs. “The Angel Song doesn’t hurt humans. It only affects the evil within.”
“Then you should be writhing on the ground with the hounds,” Mace mumbled.”

Check out more on GoodreadsBuy it on AmazonSee whats happening on the Halflings network! (P.S. There are some exciting things in the works that Heather Burch told me about! Hopefully it will be made public knowledge sometime soon!! Make sure to check the network or her website for more information later :)

Sunday, February 26, 2012

Every year at Mount Washington High School, a list is put up
all around the school. The list names the prettiest and ugliest girl in each
class. This year is no different, 8 girls lives have been changed by one piece
of paper. The List shows us their reactions to their new found popularity and
answers the age old question; do the pretty girls really have more fun?

I absolutely loved this book! I started out thinking that it
would be slightly confusing because it is told from 8 different girl’s
perspectives. Siobhan Vivian did a phenomenal job of switching back and forth
between the characters and giving them each their own voice. I feel like every
teenage girl can find a person that they identify with. It shows that what you
look like on the outside has nothing to do with what is on the inside. The “ugly”
girls may not be the most popular, but the “beautiful” girls have problems too.
I recommend this book to anyone and everyone.

The only problem I had with this book was I felt that it
left some stories untold with a few of the girls. I was left wanting to know
more about what happened and if they overcame some of the obstacles that the
list caused them.

Over all, “The List” is a pretty quick read and it is a book
that you won’t want to put down! Make sure you are ready to read for a while
when you start it, because you won’t want to stop until you’ve read the entire
thing.

Saturday, February 25, 2012

Fracture is about a girl, Delaney Maxwell, who by all
medical accounts should be dead. She fell through an icy lake and was pulled
out of the freezing water 11 minutes later. After 6 days in a coma she wakes
up. Everything seems to be fine even though a scan of her head says otherwise.
Delaney goes home and starts to live her life as usual. The only difference is
that now she has random hand tremors and an itching in her head that leads her
to mysterious places. Why does her body tell her to go to these houses? Why do
the people there always end up dying? And who is the mysterious boy who seems
to know everything about her? Delaney isn’t sure she wants to know the answers…

“A lot can happen in eleven minutes. Decker can run two
miles easily in eleven minutes. I once wrote an English essay in ten. No lie. And
God knows Carson Levine can talk a girl out of her clothes in half that time.
Eleven minutes might as well be eternity under water. It only takes three
minutes without air for loss of consciousness. Permanent brain damage begins at
four minutes. And then, when the oxygen runs out, full cardiac arrest occurs.
Death is possible at five minutes. Probable at seven. Definite at ten.Decker pulled me out at eleven."

Wow. That is the only word I can think of to describe this
book. I was able to connect with this story emotionally and it’s been the first
time I have almost cried during a book in a very long time. I wanted to cry
during parts, scream at others, and my heart was beating out of my chest for
the last half of the book. It has been a long time since I have read a book
that elicits those kinds of feelings from me. I seriously don’t even know what to say about
this book.Words cannot describe how
awesome I thought this book was. I truly felt like I was Delaney and I could
understand all of the pain and confusion she was going through. She had to deal
with all the horrors that go with “coming back from the dead”. She also deals with trying to keep up with
school, and trying to figure out her feelings for her best friend. This story
is woven together with such feeling and intensity that you will not leave this
book without going on an emotional roller coaster ride. It made you think about
one question in particular, “If you had one day left to live, what would you
do?”

This cover is simply captivating! I mean, look at that shock of red hair, her bright blue eyes that match the words of the title, and the contrast of her hair, skin, and black clothes. When I first saw this cover I was ecstatic! All of the covers for this series are amazing but this one is by far my favorite! It's not very complex but it is gorgeous in its simplicity.

Jacinda was supposed to
bond with Cassian, the "prince" of their pride. But she resisted long
before she fell in love with Will—a human and, worse, a hunter. When she
ran away with Will, it ended in disaster, with Cassian's sister, Miram,
captured. Weighed down by guilt, Jacinda knows she must rescue her to
set things right. Yet to do so she will have to venture deep into the
heart of enemy territory.

The only way Jacinda can reach Miram is by posing as a prisoner
herself, though once she assumes that disguise, things quickly spiral
out of her control. As she learns more about her captors, she realizes
that even if Will and Cassian can carry out their part of the plan,
there's no guarantee they'll all make it out alive. But what Jacinda
never could have foreseen is that escaping would be only the
beginning....

Loyalties are tested and sacrifices made in the explosive conclusion to Sophie Jordan's Firelight trilogy

Make sure to leave a link to your shelf candy post so that I can see all the great cover art out there!

Tuesday, February 21, 2012

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading.
Anyone can play along! Just do the following:
• Grab your current read
• Open to a random page
• Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
• BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share
doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
• Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can
add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

"The list is refreshing in that sense .It can reduce an entire female population down to three clear-cut groups. Prettiest.Ugliest.And everyone else."

Saturday, February 18, 2012

What if there were teens
whose lives literally depended on being bad influences? This is life
for sons and daughters of fallen angels in Sweet Evil.

Tenderhearted Southern girl, Anna Whitt, was born with the sixth
sense to see and feel emotions of other people. She’s aware of a
struggle within herself, an inexplicable pull toward danger, but it
isn’t until she turns sixteen and meets the alluring Kaidan Rowe that
she discovers her terrifying heritage, and her will-power is put to the
test. He’s the boy your daddy warned you about. If only someone had
warned Anna.

A cross-country trip forces Anna to face the reality that hope and
love are not options for her kind. Forced to face her destiny, will Anna
embrace her halo or her horns?

Wednesday, February 15, 2012

There will be a different book given away at each of the stops. At the bottom of this post are all the sites participating in the book hop. Make sure to visit (and follow) everyone and enter their giveaways! :-)

Tuesday, February 14, 2012

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading.
Anyone can play along! Just do the following:
• Grab your current read
• Open to a random page
• Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
• BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share
doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
• Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can
add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!"Let me tell you something straight off. This is a love story, but not like any you've heard.The boy and the girl are far from innocent. Dear lives are lost. And good doesn't win. In some places, there is something ultimately good about endings. In Neverland, that is not the case." -Tiger Lily by Jodi Lynn Anderson (page 3)

In "Tiger Lily" we get to read about the Lost Boys, Neverland, and Peter Pan! I was able to get a copy of this book at ALA this past month and I can't wait to read it!

Synopsis: 15 year old Tiger Lily,
proud and fierce, wild and misunderstood, doesn't believe in love
stories or happy endings. Then she meets the teenage Peter Pan in the
forbidden woods of Neverland, and immediately falls under his spell.
Peter is unlike anyone she's ever known. Impetuous and brave,
big-hearted but hard to reach, he both scares and enthralls her. As the
leader of the Lost Boys, the most fearsome of Neverland's inhabitants,
Peter is an unthinkable match for Tiger Lily. Soon, she is risking
everything - her family, her future - to be with the haunted, hunted,
courageous boy who loves her. When - as a punishment for her rebellious
ways - she is faced with marriage to a terrible man in her own tribe,
she must choose between the life she's always known and running away to
an uncertain future with Peter. With enemies threatening to tear them
apart, the lovers seem doomed. But it's the arrival of Wendy Darling,
an English girl who's everything Tiger Lily is not, that leads Tiger
Lily to discover that the most dangerous enemies can live inside even
the most loyal and loving heart.

From the New York Times bestselling author of PEACHES comes a
magical and bewitching story of the romance between a fearless heroine
and the boy who wouldn't grow up.

Tuesday, February 7, 2012

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading.
Anyone can play along! Just do the following:
• Grab your current read
• Open to a random page
• Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
• BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share
doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
• Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can
add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!Since I just posted an interview with the author and giveaway of this book, I decided it would be the perfect pick for my teaser today!!

"" I'm dying, I thought. This was
unexpected and not at all how I envisioned my death. I was supposed to die
gardening in a flowerbed as a hundred-year-old woman, not as a
seventeen-year-old trapped in a lake beneath inches of ice."

Sunday, February 5, 2012

Ms. McClellan was kind enough to sit down and answer some questions that I had about her book. So, without further ado.... here are her answers!(I'm in blue and Ms. McClellan is in purple)

• What was your inspiration for writing “Fractured Light”?

The idea for Fractured Light came to me when I overheard someone
talking about how they could see people's aura's, you know the "light"
that supposedly surrounds us? Then I thought how cool it would be to
turn that light into a power, one that's considered sacred, but, when
pushed, can be turned into a powerful weapon.
I thought it was very cool how Llona was able to use her light as a weapon made her a powerful character! (in more ways than one...)

• What were your first thoughts when you found out you were going to be a published author?

Honestly I was scared. I wanted to be published and had been trying
for a while, but when it actually happened I was so nervous. People
would be reading my stuff? I felt like my brother had stolen my diary
and was going to read it to all of his dumb friends. I’m sort of over
that now. Hmmm... I've never thought of publishing being like that. Great analogy, even normal people like me can understand that feeling.

• What made you decide to use “Auras” and “Vykens” as your
protagonists and antagonists? Have you always been interested in this
type of lore or was it something you just came up with randomly during
research for your book? Did you have to do a lot of research for this
novel?

I wanted to come up with something new, but still have the
paranormal elements that everyone loves. The concept of an Aura came
easily to me, but the Vyken was harder. I researched a lot of names, and
finally settled on Vyken – one I made up. All the other monsters had
already been used a bunch of times. I didn’t have to do much research, a
benefit of writing urban fantasy.

I was wondering why I had never heard of a Vyken before... makes perfect sense now :)

• I know that you are in the works on a sequel to “Fractured Light”
right now, how many more books in this series can we expect to be
released? Can you give us a “sneak peek” of the second book? For
example, what’s the title and what is it about?

Fractured Light is a trilogy. I just sent book two, tentatively
titled FRACTURED SOUL, to the publisher. It will be available February
2013, and the third one shortly after that. The second book is awesome,
if I may be so bold. It’s set at Lucent Academy, a school for Aura’s,
but things aren’t as safe or peaceful as everyone thinks, specifically
Llona. In addition, Llona has to deal with what happened to her in the
end of Fractured Light. She meets some new characters and delves more
into the paranormal world. You’ll see more of May, and her awesome
ability with fire, and Christian will be there, too, but there’s trouble
in paradise.

(Oh! I'm not sure how I feel about trouble in paradise! But I sure can't wait to read and find out what happens... )

• If you were Llona, and you knew that a Vyken was after you and
seems to be playing a game of cat and mouse with you, what would you do?
Would you stand behind your guardian and let him fight your battles for
you? Or would you fight back?I’m so for fighting back. Out of my way Guardian or I’ll explode
Light up your….wait, you’re hot? Well in that case, hang around while I
kill this Vyken and then we’ll talk.

Haha! I love it! A girl after my own heart...

• Are you the kind of writer that plans out every step of her book
before she writes or are you the “fly by the seat of your pants” type of
writer?

I have a general idea where I want the story to go, and I always
know my ending. Once I figure out the beginning, I’ll lightly outline
the next few chapters ahead, but I never go beyond that because I find
the story changes too much. Llona doesn’t even let me tell her what to
do. She does seem very hard headed... but, hey, it turns out pretty well with her calling the shots!

• What was the hardest thing you had to go through in order to have your first YA book published?

Hanging on to my confidence through rejections. There were times
when I wondered why I was doing it, but then I’d only have to start
writing again to know why. The haunting characters that appear to me
only want their stories to be told. Even if the rest of the world never
gets to know them, someone has listened to their tale and they are at
peace.

Well, I for one, am very glad that you kept your confidence and pushed until you were able to have their stories told!

• What advice would you give to up and coming writers?

Learn and study the craft. I mean really do it. And never think your
work is perfect, because it’s not. Take advice from others, in fact,
seek it out. Excellent Advice!!

Well, Thank you so much Rachel for taking the time to answer my questions!

Thank you!

I hope that you have enjoyed reading this interview. Rachel McClellan has worked long and hard and is finally getting to see it all pay off! Amazon published her book a few days early so you should go and buy it!If you don't want to have to buy it, Rachel has been kind enough to sign a copy of her debut YA novel "Fractured Light" which will be given to one lucky winner!

Saturday, February 4, 2012

I love the dark colors with the burst of light in the middle! I also love the contrast of her white hair and the purple cloak she is wearing.

I had the privilege of reading this book early through NetGalley. I was excited to be approved and started on it right away. I was not disappointed! It was expected to be released on February 8, 2012 but has been released earlier than expected.

Friday, February 3, 2012

Question:Book Appeal: When
you're browsing goodreads, the library, or another blogger's reviews,
what grabs your attention to make you want to read it?

What grabs my attention when browsing for books is the cover of the book!! For sure! If there is an awesome picture or great colors on the cover then I immediately grab it and start reading the synopsis. I'm not one of those people who will read the book just because of what the book cover looks like. I am, however, one of those people who becomes interested in finding out about a book because of how interesting the cover is. If it is boring or ugly I probably won't take the time to figure out what it is about but If it looks awesome then I will.

Examples:

This cover is gorgeous. The contrast of the black and red mixed with the smokey swirl would catch my eye and make me curious as to what it is about.

This book looks boring to me. There is nothing that stands out about the cover, it would just blend in with every other book on the shelves. That is not to say that this book isn't great (I haven't read it, so I wouldn't know...) but I likely would not read it unless it was recommended to me by a friend.

What do you guys think? What draws you in to reading a book or review?